How to Fix Marriages Problems Without Going to a Marriage Counselor

Your marriage has been sliding downhill, and you want it to stop before it crashes. You don't think you would feel comfortable talking to a marriage counselor, but you both know you need help.

You can do it yourself by following these counseling techniques and tips to get your marriage back in shape by yourself. Note of caution, these strategies can renew some marriages but not others, especially those of you who are in the deepest trouble. For such a condition you really should look for in-depth counseling with a professional marriage counselor.

Self-help begins with self-analysis which includes recognition that individua1s and marriages go through normal, predictable changes during their lives.

An average adult's lifetime might cover six stages: The youthful, hopeful stage from ages 22 to 28. The 29 to 32 stage, when people begin to feel they are crossing from youth to middle age and experience a sense of being trapped by young children and the pressures of a career.

Then come a more settled period between 33 and 39, when people develop a sense of building financial security and family unity. Another stressful period from 40 to 43, when adolescent children begin to create strains, and people often feel they have gone as far as they are going in a career

For those who survive that stage come a peaceful calm period between 44 and 53 when pressures seem to slacken and replaced by worries about aging, the menopause and the male climacteric.

Finally, 54 to 65, when most people finally mellow. Because people change marriages change too. Couples must realize that what they are grappling with may be a normal consequence of life, not a unique situation.

Fact is there is not just one marriage in a lifetime between a husband and wife, but many. For example, young couples who marry today may expect to be wed for 50 years. During that span a couple passes through many stages of the marital life cycle. They are successively newlyweds, young parents of young children, middle-aged parents of adolescents, mutual victims of their own midlife crisis, 'empty nesters' and then senior citizens.

Each stage brings its own conflicts and must be dealt with in its own way. Then you need to define your own particular form of marriage. There are five general categories for marriages:
- The devitalized
- Placid but half-alive match without much involvement between partners
- "Conflict-habituated" marriage in which couples seem to need and enjoy constant fights
- The "passive-congenial" match with few ups and downs
- The total marriage in which the couples share all experiences to the point where individual growth is stunted
- The vital marriage in which the partners are deeply involved in each other's interests but not in the suffocating manner of total marriage.

The three major obstacles to improving one's marriage are:
- Fear of change
- A need to place blames, usually on, the other partner
- Belief that, a problem marriage will spontaneously improve with time.

At each point in the analysis there are a series of questions your and your spouse can ask yourselves and talks you can perform to come to grips with the problems you identify.

Among the points are:

- Recognize the necessity of dealing with these problems in a serious and professional manner as a marriage counselor does. That means establishing a "therapeutic environment," a private place at a quiet and convenient time when you can discuss your marriage with a minimum of distractions.

- Make a real effort to "get acquainted." That sounds like an odd idea for a couple who have lived together for years, but it is an important one because many of us do not take time to listen or tell the things that are most important to us and your spouse cannot be expected to read minds.

- Minimize hostility. There are several techniques for this and one of them is anger management. It does not mean anger should be repressed. Anger should can be expressed but not in the form of uncontrolled hostility. A person can vent hostility by pounding a pillow, by examining the causes of the anger, or by changing tactics from complaining to describing positively what one partner could do to make life happier.

- Be each other's co-therapist. Helping the other build self-esteem, for example, can build ones own self-esteem as a helpful person. Helping the other overcome some problem also can be a very loving act.

- Emphasize the positive rather than the negative. Compose a written list of the things you has in common with your spouse. This technique can show both of you just how much you have to lose if you don't work out the marriage.

- Notice the things your spouse does well and comment on them.

- Practice role-switching to help you and your spouse understand each other's problems and needs.

- Act on what you learn and don't expect fast results. Changes take time.